PHOENIX — Back in December, heavy rain caused pavement issues in a Phoenix neighborhood near 15th Avenue and McDowell.
ABC15 went to that neighborhood nearly two months later to see if anything had been done about it.
Some folks who live here tell us the coating, from a special pavement program, is still on their streets and even on their sidewalks.
The coating is meant to keep things cooler during Phoenix's extreme heat, but back in December, the rain washed some of it away.
Leonard Horton lives in the neighborhood.
He says the mess left behind following the storm had residents slipping and sliding on the road, adding that’s still the case nearly two months later.
“I’ve seen people slip, trying to get through that slime out onto the street when they’re crossing the street,” said Horton.
While Horton is disappointed that the coating on the edge of the road still hasn’t been removed, he’s thankful most of it is gone.
“I think they did a good job of trying to clean it up,” he added.
The City of Phoenix tells ABC15 out of the 73 miles of cool pavement across 17 neighborhoods, and one parking lot in a city park, damage from the storm is confined to streets in the area between 17th and 15th avenues, and McDowell Road to Encanto Boulevard.
The city says clean-up is mostly complete, and all of the coating should be removed within the next two weeks.
“They had two or three trucks working that used an extreme high-pressure wash system that they ran up and down the street,” Horton told ABC15.
The city says the cost of cleaning the seal coat from the roadway is being covered by the contractor and not at taxpayer expense.
The city adds that neighborhood streets that received the cool pavement seal coat during the last two years were roadways that were due for scheduled pavement maintenance.
The cost of the cool pavement seal coat projects is covered by the department’s annual pavement maintenance budget which is the same budget as a traditional black seal coat project.
The City of Phoenix will hold a neighborhood community meeting in mid-February to discuss whether or not they reapply this special coating on the damaged streets.
“We want to see it done right. Do it right and everybody’s happy. Including the guy who put it down. He don’t have to come back,” said Horton.
